Over twenty years ago, an acting teacher gave me a copy of a short play called The Lollipop Project. It was one of those plays that really stuck with me. I was even given the author, Suli Holum’s, email address. I never did email her, as I was way too shy at that point in my life, but that script has traveled with me all over. I literally still have that script with Suli’s email address hand written. This script was the start of my admiration of Suli. I wouldn’t meet her

I’m going to start off open and honest here. I am a queer, trans non-binary, ace person, and intimate scenes are often hard for me to watch. I respect them, and I definitely know there’s a place for them, but they’re just really hard for me. It’s really any type of medium that gets me. I know this is a combination of a lot of things, but usually, anything sexual and I’m averting my gaze. This is just me, and a part of my identity. Maybe I’m missing out on some things, b

Irene Molloy’s story is incredible. She has been all over…emotionally, mentally, and physically…and she has absolutely come out on top. Getting to hear her story was extremely interesting, and I felt really privileged to experience it. Show Pony was a show that I think I could watch over and over again and still learn and gain more from it. Irene is a strong woman in so many ways, and it made her show all the more interesting. I think I was a lot more captivated by Show P

The idea behind Conquering the Canon is extremely simple, but also extremely complicated. It’s a one-man show about Michael Hagins, the only African-American man to have been in all of Shakespeare’s canon. Well, sign me up yesterday! First of all, I am a huge Shakespeare fan, so I’ll eat up anything about the Bard. Secondly, I love when Shakespeare is performed differently from the way it was written. There’s a lot of that these days, with gender swapping and such. And

Any Fringe can be a great vehicle to a new show. Writing and developing a show takes time, and when you’re pouring everything into that piece, you need a different kind of audience than you would get elsewhere. Fringe is good for a test. It’s sort of a smaller scale type of thing, and audiences going in know they’re going to be seeing something a bit different. You get to talk more about it, and continue to make it into something that will, someday, be absolutely grand. A

Philly Fringe is probably something in the know to everyone in the Philly theatre scene. For a glorious couple of weeks, venues known, unknown, and completely wacky, show plays that you probably wouldn’t see anywhere else. Fringe is all about doing something different…doing something daring. There are all sorts of shows that you would see at Fringe. The Yellow Bicycle Company in center city Philadelphia is one of those venues showing some truly remarkable looking plays. J

Lindsay Smiling is Philadelphia theatre. You can find him everywhere…onstage, off stage, in charge…I’m pretty sure this man can do everything. I have interviewed Lindsay before, but this time was different. This was the first time I got to see Lindsay act! I know I’m sort of late to the party on that one, but it was something that excited me from the very start. Going into The America Play, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. All I knew was that I couldn’t wait to see L

Part of the beauty of theatre is that it is a collaboration of so many people and their unique jobs. Although we may not think or realize all of these things that are involved, they’re important to recognize when we can. I recently saw Caesar at Philadelphia Theatre Company, which was Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar edited down to 95 minutes. This edit was done by the incredible Tyler Dobrowsky. In the three years I’ve been running Zoe Writes Theatre, I’ve never really had t

Happy almost 2026! This year has been quite a year for me, and for Zoe Writes Theatre. I celebrated my three years running this blog, and my little baby project just keeps growing and growing. Since we’re mere days away from the new year, I wanted to do a sort of year in review. 2025 was definitely very good to me, and I really can’t wait to see what 2026 brings me. At this point, it can only go up from here! So here is me, Zoe, reflecting on the past year. I hope you g

There are some roles where you can’t picture any actor playing them other than the one you saw. This is completely how I felt about Arianna Gayle in Job . A show this intense calls for an actor that’s going to be able to fill those shoes. Gayle really captured a role that could not have been easy, and she did it so realistically and beautifully. I loved watching every moment she brought to that stage. Something insanely interesting to me is how I perceived Gayle in this

I know Walden was some time ago, but I have some wonderful interviews from it that I want to put up! Alice Yorke and Campbell O’Hare did an amazing job as twin sisters Stella and Cassie, and they had a lot of interesting things to say about the show, what they did, and the characters they played. I really feel like they provided great insight to a very beautiful and intense show. Walden was such an intimate play, with only three actors in the cast. Seeing these two women

I had the pleasure of seeing Matteo Scammell in a few productions this season, and I loved all of them. I wish I had gotten to see more...

Giovanni’s Room was one of my favorite shows of this season. It might have been one of my favorite shows ever. A very large part of...

Directors are very interesting people to talk to. They experience all of a play, start to finish, and no one sees their face. They have...

There are many different ways that a play’s cast can be seen. Some shows have ensemble casts. Some shows are very individual based. ...

Storytelling is what theatre is all about. Actors, and teams of backstage folks work hard to bring a story to audiences. But what about...

One of our famous selfies! Over the past couple years, I’ve needed a theatre buddy who deals with all my insanity and supports me totally...

Tyler Elliott, Sarah Stryker, Christopher Patrick Mullen, and me! In my time growing up in theatre, being a part of theatre, and even...

There are so many people involved in putting together a play that we just don’t think about. We really just see the actors, and the...

Over the years, I have seen Justin Jain do many things, at many theatres. If there’s someone who’s really been all over the Philly and...